


ain't no sin

by molgera



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Requited Love, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molgera/pseuds/molgera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s wrong,” his boss says one day, “what some of these men get up to at night when they think no one’s watching. Ungodly is what it is,” he shakes his head and walks away. <i>I ain’t no sinner</i>, Bucky thinks, looking himself in the mirror that night. “I <i>ain’t</i>.” He says it out loud this time—eyes hard, voice firm. Maybe if he says it enough he can believe it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no sin

Steve looked out the open window, the sky painted a dusty rose while the sounds of a sweet summer night in Brooklyn filtered in, the soft static of the radio and some song, distantly familiar, drifted through the apartment.

“C’mon Steve,” Bucky pleaded, “you ain’t never gonna charm a dame if you can’t dance. Let me show you.”

 _I don’t want no dame_ , Steve wanted to say, _I just want you_. And god, he was so sick of wanting.

“Buck I can’t, you know I’ve got two left feet,” he exhaled with his whole body, shoulders slumping forward in defeat. He could never resist Bucky. “Alright,” Steve said begrudgingly, “where do you want me?”

“C’mere,” Bucky beckoned him over across the well-worn floor, looking far too handsome for someone who had just gotten back from a day down on the docks.

“Alright, how about we start off easy? Take your shoes off and stand on my feet, I’ll do all the work and then we can try the real deal.” Less work for Steve—he could live with that. Last time Bucky had taken him out on a double date he’d stepped on the girl’s toes. She grabbed her friend and stormed off, muttering something with a scowl plastered across her face. Steve had heard it enough times. _Pathetic, weak_. There were other words, other nights. He’d given up hoping that there was anyone out there with eyes for someone like him.

Bucky slung an arm around Steve’s shoulder, ever the optimist. “You’re too good for her, anyhow.”

“Whatever you say, Buck.” He wanted to believe it so bad, but he was sure Bucky was just humoring him.

Steve toed off his shoes and walked over to Bucky, whose shirt was now half undone. Steve raised an eyebrow. “Too damn hot,” he said, like that made it okay. For once Steve’s grateful they can’t afford to keep the lights on most of the time, the apartment illuminated by the setting sun. There was nothing indecent about a few buttons undone, he knows that. But it didn’t make the wanting any easier. He grits his teeth and tries not to think about how Bucky would look with the rest of his shirt undone, hanging open. All of him laid out for Steve on their crummy mattress with threadbare sheets. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about things like that, but it was hard to resist. And if it was only in his head, well then, no one had to know. Something his and his alone.

Bucky took no time in grabbing Steve’s left hand, placing it on his waist while he took his right into his own and laced their fingers together. Steve’s heart was hammering in his chest. _This was a bad idea, this can’t end well, this_ —

Bucky seemed to sense Steve’s nervousness, his left hand moving around to the small of his back.

“Relax, Stevie, s’just me.” Bucky’s voice was soft now, his usual bravado notably absent. Bucky began to sway; the song on the radio had switched to something slower, softer. Everything felt much too intimate, but Steve felt trapped. He couldn’t back out now, he’d be giving himself away. _If I haven’t already_ , he thinks to himself.

Bucky hums along to a song Steve doesn’t know and pulls him flush against his sternum, Steve’s ear quickly registering the rapid beating in Bucky’s chest. _It’s just hot_ , Steve tells himself. He wonders distantly who Bucky’s thinking about. One of the usual dames he goes out with to the pictures, he thinks. Mary or Margaret, he can never keep all of them straight.

“You’re doin’ real good, Steve, I think you might be getting the hang of this.” _I’m not doing anything_ , Steve wants to say. _I don’t know what you’re talking about,_ he thinks.

“You’re doin’ all the work, Buck,” Steve laughs against his chest. Bucky’s grateful Steve can’t see him right then, because he’s almost certain it’s written all over his face. _I love you_ , he thinks. _I love you so damn much_. He wonders if he thinks it hard enough Steve will feel it too. 

He pulls his hand away from Steve’s back and cards it gently through his damp hair, wondering if he could have this. It’d be asking too much, Bucky thinks. He swallows hard and pushes down the hope threatening to escape him. Words on the tip of his tongue he’d been holding back for too long. Entertaining such a thought was foolish, he knew damn well what they said about people like him down on the docks.

“It’s wrong,” his boss says one day, “what some of these men get up to at night when they think no one’s watching. Ungodly is what it is,” he shakes his head and walks away. _I ain’t no sinner_ , Bucky thinks, looking himself in the mirror that night. “I _ain’t_.” He says it out loud this time—eyes hard, voice firm. Maybe if he says it enough he can believe it.

Steve and Bucky go on like that for another song, swaying softly, Steve finally pulling away, letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. His shirt was plastered to his skin, covered in sweat.

“You’re right, it is too damn hot. Maybe we should finish this another time,” he says gently. Bucky stills, his expression suddenly unreadable. Steve wonders what he said wrong, if he’d somehow offended Bucky.

“Or we could finish it now,” he says, coming out more like a question than a suggestion. Bucky shakes his head and laughs, but there’s a sense of bitterness behind it. It sounds sad.

“Everything alright, Buck? Did I do something wrong?” Steve looks up at Bucky, eyes searching for something to hold onto, something solid and real. The ground felt like it was collapsing beneath his feet, he was going to fall right through the floor into Mrs. O’Connell’s apartment, and he didn’t have the money to fix that, didn’t have two dimes to rub together and—

“I’ve tried so hard, Stevie.” Steve swears time stops right then. He couldn’t have this. He wants to cover his ears, because he doesn’t want to hear it, because it can’t be happening, and he wouldn’t let Bucky make a fool of him. “And I’m just so damn tired.” Bucky’s eyes are weary, and Steve wonders how he didn’t see it before now.

“I could screw half of Brooklyn and it wouldn’t make a damn difference. They’re not… they’re not—” Bucky chokes on his words. He rubs at his face, tugs at his hair. His voice drops to a whisper and sounds like a plea. “They’re not _you_ ,” he chokes out, and now he’s crying. Quietly, but there are tears on his face and an ache like a hole in Steve’s chest so big he feels like it’ll never close up.

“I know it’s wrong to want you, to want a fella, s’just. You’re so _good_ , Steve. So damn good it hurts when I look at you, when you come home with a split lip all scraped up just ‘cause you can’t,” he shakes his head, amending, “won’t back down from a fight. Like you don’t know what’s good for you but you do it anyhow, consequences be damned. No one in this damn city’s half as brave, half as strong—” and Steve shakes his head, can’t fathom what the hell anyone could see in him, scrawny and bony, so slight he wonders sometimes if he’s just gonna snap clean in two. His heart might, if Bucky doesn’t stop this soon.

“Buck, I don’t—”

“Yeah, I know, pal. I shouldn’t have opened my trap. Don’t worry about me.” And there’s the sad laugh again. It breaks Steve’s damn heart. He heads for the door, turning his back on him. “Don’t wait up for me, alright?” He shuffles out the door before Steve can even get a word in, leaving him standing there, mouth hanging open.

-

Bucky should have known Steve would still be up when he got back, as if he’d ever listened to anyone, anything but his own heart and head his whole life.

“Told you not to wait up for me, Steve,” Bucky chides, wiping his shoes on the mat by the door and then taking them off.

“You—” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off. “Listen, forget it, alright? It was stupid of me to say anything, so let’s just forget it.”

And for all the times Steve had stood in front of someone twice his size with fists half the size of his face, he sounded so damn small. “What if I don’t _want_ to? You ever think of that?”

Bucky’s eyes go wide and now it’s his turn to stand there dumbstruck.

Steve steels himself, reminds himself of all the times he refused to back down from a fight. _This shouldn’t be any different_ , he thinks, _but it is._ He swallows hard. It feels like there’s cotton in his throat.

“Now you listen to me, James Buchanan Barnes,” and Bucky’s body goes rigid at that. “You think—you think I couldn’t want you back? You must be dumber than half of Brooklyn.” And there’s so much more Steve wants to say, but his head’s full of cotton too, his heart’s beating so hard his head is throbbing with it. “You’re a damn fool if you think I couldn’t love you.”

Steve’s moving across the floor in long strides, as long as his legs will allow, barreling into Bucky at full force. They stand there, Steve looking up and Bucky looking down, hearts pounding, chests heaving because there wasn’t enough air, they were too close, they—

Bucky blinks three times, shakes his head and tries to tell himself this is real. All he has to do is ask. Steve’s ready to give his heart to him—anything Bucky wants is already his, has been for god knows how long.

“You really—you love me?” He says it like he can’t believe it, because he still doesn’t—not yet.

“Buck,” Steve says, and it’s happy and sad all at once, “how couldn’t I?”

“Say it again,” Bucky begs. It’s not asking too much, this time, it really isn’t.

“I love you,” he says, standing on his tiptoes to press a chaste kiss against Bucky’s lips.

“How long?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, and it’s not a lie. It’s the kind of love that creeps up on you, he thinks. It’s hot summer nights dancing to songs he doesn’t know the name of and cold winter mornings where all Steve has is Bucky to hold onto, to keep him warm, make sure he doesn’t catch a cold. It’s the way Bucky ruffles his hand through Steve’s hair without thinking about it, and how the light hits him _just so_ when he’s sitting on the fire escape, Steve sketching the hard lines of his body, the angle of his jaw, the twinkle in his eye when he grins at something Steve says. Steve swears he could get drunk on Bucky’s smile alone.

“Does it matter?” And Steve’s looking up at him with his heart written across his face and hopes it’s enough to convince him that it’s real, that he means it, that he’ll always mean it. _End of the line_ , he thinks, but lines go on forever. He distantly remembers graph paper—x’s and y’s and arrows indicating the direction the lines went in, infinitely and endlessly.

“No,” Bucky says, leaning down to kiss Steve for real, pulling back and shaking his head, “no, I guess it doesn’t.” He smiles, and it’s not sad, and the hole in Steve’s chest begins to close up.

“I love you too, punk,” Bucky laughs, plays it off a little like a joke, and then says it again to be sure Steve knows damn well how much.

“I love you,” Bucky says it, means it, but pauses a moment to revel in how the words feel on his lips, knowing that he can have this, now. That it’s allowed.

 _Ain’t no sin in this_ , Bucky thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> i was talking to [sterlingarcher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlingarcher/works) about pre-war stucky and dancing and then this happened. title is from badlands by bruce springsteen because somehow he always finds his way into everything i write. 
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/beefybarnes) and [tumblr](http://frankiesinatra.tumblr.com)!


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